...what were the ''notable'' suicides in WW2? Rommel...Tresckow.... Hitler....Goebbels and family ..Goring--waiting until after the trial and sentencing --why wait?? why didn't the others? ..Himmler---thought he could slip away = idiocy....? ...while suicide was ''part'' of the Japanese culture, it was not so of the Germans--yes? ... what about the Italians--also losers in the war? or French? etc? any other interesting aspects?
I read a biography by a soldier in the 474th Infantry that spoke of a medic who killed himself just before getting on the truck to ship out for a secret mission to Oslo. In an FSSF biography I read an account of a fellow on the night watch who disappeared the night before the troop ship landed in Africa. I would wager that there were many more suicides by the troops.
good call....as .....good call....as there are ''many'' suicides in peacetime, seems there would be more in wartime ....as I've said in other threads, wars ''unleash'' so much more of the underlying human ''traits''/etc ---''horrors''/tragedies/evil
During the shooting sessions for the SS-men, young German girls from the Funkstelle would often also arrive. They worked in Auschwitz for the SS as support staff as telephone operators or as telegraph ‘sparks’ in the local head office. The girls would come after work because – as young girls do – they wanted their pictures taken for posterity. They were barely twenty and they had uniforms in the same color as the SS uniforms. Their uniforms were made from the same material and they consisted of a jacket and a skirt. All the girls were always well groomed and I fancied them a lot. One in particular I remember vividly. She came wearing the regulation uniform – jacket and skirt – and asked me to take a really good picture, she explicitly gave me to understand that I had to make a really special effort. She was about 23, blond, pretty and with an elaborate hairstyle. This girl talked to me a little. She wanted the picture sent to her mother and she wanted a shot called a half bust. She showed almost all her bust, she almost exposed her breasts for the photograph. After a few days, she collected the photograph that she liked very much. And because I really fancied her as a girl, as a woman, so – even though I was a prisoner and she was in uniform – I exchanged a few words with her. About a couple of weeks later I asked after her of some fellow prisoners who worked near the telephone operators’ room and near the telegraph center. Those offices were in a one-story building just next to the crematorium. On the ground floor there was a hospital for the SS, and upstairs, the telephone operating center. They knew who I meant as soon as I asked. ‘Ah, you mean that pretty one. She is dead.’ It turned out that she had committed suicide. She poisoned herself because she could not put up with the situation in the camp. Every day, from the upstairs window, she could see what was going on around the crematorium. She saw crowds of people entering the crematorium, masses of Jews, and later nobody would come out again, all you could see was smoke. So she had worked out what was going on there, she couldn't take it and she killed herself. And she was so young and so pretty. from Maria Anna Potocka "Wilhelm Brasse. Fotograf. Auschwitz 1940 -1945"
..very interesting.......I think it shows clearly how the human mind absorbs/works in abnormal situations......thanks for posting that ..more common than we think?
"Medal hunting" is when some damn fool is determined to "win" an MOH or Silver Star or something. Not a team player and "own goals" to the point of being a liability to the unit. Never pleasant to see a teammate die but sometimes it's a relief to be rid of that idiot.
Especially if the "idiot" is an officer. German servicemen would say that such officers had "neck itch". In war, death is easy to come by. All one has to do is raise your head a little to far, once to often. This from Max Hastings "Das Reich": "On 30 June Major Otto Dickmann foolishly moved outside his bunker one morning without his helmet, and was caught by a shell splinter in the head which killed him instantly. There was some speculation among his comrades that Dickmann had lost the will to live, to commit such a suicidal act. It is difficult to imagine that he was stricken by remorse. But it is possible that he was exasperated by the inquiries being pursued into his actions." (At Oradour.)
Yeah. Sometimes guys will just get up and walk toward the enemy. In one instance I read about the Japanese didn't kill him out right, they just shot him full of non-lethals. Took he a good long while to die. I imagine he re-thought his plan somewhere in there.
..that is an interesting subject also...out of over 40 years of reading about war, I don't remember--specifically--reading about someone out to get an award--but there had to be some.....?.....I have read about a captain they called ''Captain Contact'' in Nam because he wanted to make contact with the enemy....where as it said in the book, that most of them did not want to ''make contact''---obviously because of the danger/death--yes?
As for medal-hunters, there were those who would do anything, especially anything stupid, for a medal. Then there were those who were impulsive and didn't think too much (meaning they didn't realize they were idiots). And then there were the Joes who got in a situation that earned them a medal, but definitely not something that would intentional on their part. I knew a CB with an MOH when I was stationed in Sicily. Very modest man, "I really don't remember more than being really, really pissed off." Glad he was on our side.
..yes -you had your Gung Ho'ers...and then the ones who just did enough to get by...etc ...I thought I remember something I read about fighter pilots in WW2: something like = not many at all--very few--wanted action/went to the action/were great/etc--these were the aces...and a lot did not want action..... ---maybe I'm wrong on this, but that's what I remember...for some reason, I've remembered that
